


Five ways John realised he was in SO much trouble. (With hindsight.)

by Wushu76



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: 5 Things, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-03
Updated: 2013-03-03
Packaged: 2017-12-04 04:35:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/706615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wushu76/pseuds/Wushu76
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The title says it all, John realises just how much trouble he’s in, after the fact.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five ways John realised he was in SO much trouble. (With hindsight.)

**Author's Note:**

> Written in 2006.

5.

Everyone has defining moments in their life. 

Some are remarkably small, you don't realise their importance until later. Others were life changing from the moment of happening; you knew things would never be the same.

The first time he'd been in a plane. It was really a minor thing, most people have taken at least one flight in their life, but he'd known, from that instant on, he wanted to fly. He'd directed his whole life towards it from that point onwards and the first time he'd taken the pilot seat, the first time he'd flown, had been a moment of realising for the first time, he'd achieved a dream.

The day he'd chosen, knowing the consequences, to disobey direct orders and go back. To try and rescue someone he'd been ordered to leave behind. That had been a huge one. He'd known it and he hadn’t once regretted it. He'd known in that moment that Major was as far as he was ever getting. That he'd stalled his career, but kept his honour intact. He didn't leave people behind.

Sitting in that damn chair. Now that was the epitome of something tiny changing the world. At least his world. For in that one act, a whole new reason in his life had been born. Even though he'd fought it, made General O'Neill try and convince him, said he didn't know. He’d known the instant Elizabeth had asked him to come. Hell he knew the moment he'd felt the cool touch of Ancient technology slip oh so gently into his mind.

Waking the wraith. He hadn't known what would happen this time. It wasn't even an innocent act. He'd killed that queen because he'd just been forced to kill his brand spanking new CO, because she was a threat. Because they would never have escaped if she'd been left behind alive. He'd asked himself for years, if he'd known what would happen, if he'd known he was starting a war and damning hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions of people to an horrific death, would he do it all again? He was a little ashamed to know he would. It was a certainty that came from his very core; he'd done the right thing, going after his people. That self-knowledge was something he was going to have to live with for the rest of his life.

Yet, every one of those moments pale into nothingness when he finally understood, in that moment of agonising realisation, he had done his friend harm. He’d known things were going wrong almost as soon as Rodney’s sister had started telling them all her Meredith stories, known it every time he’d seen that little hesitation in Rodney joining them that Jeanie was using them to hurt her brother, she even admitted it to Rodney. He should have stoped her, it was his responsibility as Rodney’s team leader at least, if not his friend, but he’d been amused. It wasn’t often he had something on Rodney McKay.

He just hadn’t realised how much it was hurting him. By the time Rodney had been pacing his room, upset about the whole situation, he’d been shocked by Rodney’s statement that his sister had every reason to hate him. It had seemed pretty clear that the reason Jeanie was hurting Rodney was because she was still hurting, because she loved her brother. He’d watched Rodney after that, trying to fix it, watched and something had twisted within him. Bitter and cold at the back of this throat, so he’d shown her the message, made sure she realised that her ‘real’ brother loved her, even if he was lousy at expressing it.

He’d been sure that solved it, sitting there very pleased that he’d done it, when Rodney had come in. The pained resignation on Rodney’s face, the accusing question, the moment of true pain he’d seen deep in Rodney’s eyes had made him realise, what he’d done to Rodney was much shoddier behaviour than Jeanie’s. He had harmed Rodney, not just once, but over and over again, sometimes deliberately and even worse, sometimes maliciously.

Before Jeanie’s visit he’d had moments of wondering if the teasing had gone too far. Moments were he’d had to consider if he’d pushed Rodney further than the other man was willing to be pushed, but Rodney had never complained just flung more insults back at him or said nothing at all. So he’d dismissed the thoughts, after all Rodney was hardly the type to sit idly and silently by while something happened he didn’t like. He’d forgotten the knowledge he’d gained the day he watched Rodney walk into a cloud of energy being that was eating its way through their generator. That when Rodney McKay was being quiet was when you had to worry the most, sarcasm, complaining about everything under the sun (including the sun) and that loud panic attacks in the face of certain death was his friends default setting. Silence was the thing to watch out for and worry about. In forgetting that hard learned lesson he had let his treatment of Rodney get so bad at times he could only conclude that with a friend like him, Rodney didn't need enemies.

That was a wound more grievous than any other he'd ever carried. A wound he truly didn't think he could spend the rest of his life living with. A wound he was honour bound to try and heal, just as soon as he worked out how. That realising he’d hurt Rodney was more painful a wound than starting a galaxy wide war, should have alerted him long ago.

 

4.

He didn’t want to use the term lonely either.

He'd been at the SGC for four days. Four days of the gate alarm not being his problem. Four days of being just another soldier. He’d gone from commanding military officer of Atlantis to just another grunt. Where once he’d been the team leader of the premier team now just another team leader with just any old team. From being Kirk to a nameless red shirt, unimportant and eminently replaceable. Four days to realise that all he wanted was to go home with his people. For the anger and disappointment of what had happened to them to simmer and grow. He missed everyone with an intensity that he could never say, but he felt painfully. To mean what he’d said in General O’Neill’s presence, they should never have saved them, with such fury he’d known, had he the chance, he’d go back and change it, make sure they had never picked the bastards up. He just wanted to go home, back to Atlantis and take back the family he’d had to say goodbye to, with one noted exception.

And honestly, that was all ok, he knew he should be feeling all those things, that it was pretty normal in fact. The thing that he'd realised with a clarity that should have tipped him off, he'd spoken to Rodney more than four times on the phone every day, even the one he'd been off world for over twenty hours. 

That and the fact, even more than the cool touch of Atlantis in the back of his mind and everyone else combined, he missed Rodney McKay.

 

3.

Trust was dangerous.

In his life he had never been one to trust easily, nor overly. He'd often been part of the in crowd, one of the crowd and normally one of most popular. He'd practised laid back and charming until he could do it in his sleep. Very few wanted to get past it, the exterior was so pleasant they assumed it was all there was. He'd had buddies, people who would have claimed to know him better than anyone else in the world who’d never looked past it. He'd had girlfriends, a few here and there, who wanted to know him that way who had wanted to look past it, but he’d never let them. By the time he'd joined the military the laid back charm was all he'd shown just about everyone, and because he knew they didn't really know him, he'd never really trusted them.

He trusted his team, with breath-taking surety that frightened him. They didn't always agree, they were broken in a way he didn't know how to fix anymore, but he trusted them to not only save the mission, but to save him. Each other.

He had trusted Rodney. Trusted that the man was as right as he believed as smart as he believed. He'd looked into those eyes, into that expressive face and believed in Rodney's belief. It had almost gotten them killed and even now he wasn’t sure he’d completely forgiven Rodney for that. No, if he was truly honest, what he hadn’t forgiven Rodney for was the tunnel vision, for the inability to see his own limitations and almost killing himself. Yes, that was what he wasn’t sure he’d forgiven him for. 

Rodney had been right about something else though, he had earned the right to call on that trust. Something Rodney really deserved to hear from him, if he could ever manage to verbalise it to Rodney’s face. As the fall out had shattered them all he'd remembered once again the lessoned learnt as a child, the higher you are the harder you fall. Rodney's fall was long, and painfully hard for everyone, although most painful for Rodney himself of course. For the first time they questioned Rodney. Wondered if maybe someone else could be doing a better job. Elizabeth had even instigated an incredibly uncomfortable conversation between them where, without coming out and actually saying it they had both wondered whether or not they should send Rodney back to Earth now that they could. In fact they had danced around the topic for almost an hour without the words ever being spoken out loud. A few weeks later Rodney had saved them all once more, from a super-volcano this time. They had never even danced around the topic of sending Rodney home again. That the words had never been spoken out loud was their only comfort.

All those trusts had been reasonable though. They had proven themselves and the only surprising thing was how powerfully he felt it. What had frightened him, almost beyond measure, was the day he'd looked across at Rodney in some random briefing, and realised, he trusted him. Again. He'd never trusted someone again ever before, he lived by a one-chance system.

The most terrifying had been, when he finally thought on it, the realisation he'd never stopped. 

 

2.

Moments of bliss. 

It was just a few pictures. Mental snap shots. There was nothing wrong with them. Except they flashed before his eyes every time he came. Since it had started, his climaxes had never been more powerful. It wasn't explicit, hell it was barely suggestive. Two hands dancing through the air. Ok, that one was kinda suggestive; he couldn't help but wonder how they would feel around him. Two hard little nipples pressed against a blue shirt. If they really were that sensitive to the temperature he did wonder how they would react to being touched or better yet, licked.

He could deal with those ones, really he could. He'd come to peace with his own sexuality years ago. He'd also known that the price of flying was repressing that half of himself, but the last image was the dangerous one, it really was. Two of the bluest eyes he knew. Because it wasn't the eyes, although they were beautiful, it was the emotion he saw in them. That was what made his climaxes more powerful than any he had ever known. That was what, when he looked back on it, make him realise he was in deeper than he could get out of.

 

1.

The day he'd met Rodney McKay.

They say hindsight is 20/20 but years down the track he still can't help but think he hasn't seen the full effect that this one man has had on his life and it's even more doubtful that that effect has ended yet. They were caught in this mutual orbit around one and other. Nothing had managed to come between them even as things came between them. Even as they fucked up, they still had each other's back. Even as he made the best relationship he'd ever had into a shambles, Rodney was still there, still coming back for more. As long as Rodney was still coming back, there was still the possibility that he could fix it. Maybe even make it better than before, make it into the relationship he hardly dared to dream about.

If he was given the power to change that day in some way. To prevent all the trouble that had come his way because of the day he'd met Rodney, knowing now how his world would shift. Falling into a mutual orbit with this man, knowing that as long as he remained there that trouble would continue to come his way. John Sheppard knew he wouldn't change a thing.

And if he loved Rodney McKay that much, he was in more trouble than he knew what to do with.


End file.
